Michael Ledeen on Iran: Do the Right Thing: Let's Avoid Making a Catastrophe Out of an Embarrassment

I certainly don't concur with Michael Ledeen's overall arch-neocon agenda and philosophies, but even if believe that the neocons are pure evil, it still makes sense to find out what they are actually saying, since that's what a lot of Washington policymakers are hearing, so that's what you need to be prepared to combat.

Michael has an article on the "showdown" with Iran in the National Review Online dated January 18, 2006 entitled "Do the Right Thing: Let's Avoid Making a Catastrophe Out of an Embarrassment."

Interestingly, he argues that sanctions won't work, but he doesn't argue for immediate military action. I can't disagree with him there.

He even argues that bombing Iranian nuclear facilities won't work, saying:

Do you really believe that our intelligence community is capable of identifying them? The same crowd that did all that yeoman work on Saddam's Iraq? The CIA that once received accurate information on Iranian schemes in Afghanistan, only to walk away from the sources that provided it? The CIA that, three times in the past 15 years or so, seems to have had its entire "network" inside Iran rolled up by the mullahs? And even if you believe that we have good information about the nuclear sites, are you prepared to deal with the political consequences, in Iran and throughout the region? Do we even know, with any degree of reliability, what those are? Look at the problems we now face in Pakistan, after a handful of innocents were killed in an assault against a presumed terrorist gathering. Then imagine, if you can, the problems following hundreds, or thousands of innocents killed in raids inside Iran. Are you prepared for that?

Again, I can't disagree with any of what he says there.

Instead, Michael continues to lobby for supporting "democratic revolution" in Iran. Here things get very vague, but partly that's because this relates to a lot of covert activity that a lot of people really want to keep out of the hands of the government in Iran at this time. And partly it may be vague since the approach simply isn't yet all "there."

But the real bottom line is that supporting efforts like we saw in the Ukraine are relatively cheap and nowhere near as messy as long, drawn-out sanctions and big-bang wars.

Personally, I don't know what the right answer is, yet, but I sure know that we're not heaving about any right answer from Washington these days.

Anybody know what Howard Dean or John Kerry think we should be doing (besides toothless "diplomacy")?

Personally, I don't know anybody who is more knowledgable about the geopolitics of Iran than Michael Ledeen. Although I don't concur with all or even ncessarily very much of Michael's thinking, at least he's not spouting the kind of complete nonsense such as we've been hearing lately from so many politicians, unelected government officials, pundits, and the media.

Take a look at what Michael has to say and then draw your own conclusions. Hopefully you'll be able to transcend all of this stuff and come up with your own new ideas which will likely be a lot more enlightening than "the general consensus".

Addressing the issues surrounding Iran will take a lot of clear thinking. Is that clear?

-- Jack Krupansky